It’s All Obama’s Fault

It’s hard to demonstrate against an inspirational light. The anti-NATO protesters miss their bogeyman.

They talked about an “immense, fantastic number” of demonstrators; they promised speeches and rallies that would “change world politics.” The picture organizers of the G8 protests in Heiligendamm in 2007 painted looked downright euphoric. And now at NATO’s 60th birthday, a more familiar and traditional bogeyman: two days of good old summit splendor in Baden-Baden, Kehl and Strasbourg – what a festival of protest that’s going to be, many thought. There have been the usual almost cliché-like slogans meant to arouse the crowds: “Sink the NATO summit!” and “Let’s rain on their parade!” But after all that, there doesn’t seem to be a revival of any summertime talk of “us against them.” And it’s all Barack Obama’s fault.

The conditions for a protest in Baden-Baden would seem to be ideal. Doubts about the future of the West’s military alliance aren’t just the property of leftist peaceniks any longer. In Afghanistan, the alliance is in a bind, and in Kosovo it’s crumbling since Spain’s announced their intention to withdraw. Departing NATO General Secretary de Hoop Scheffer himself admitted last weekend that “NATO has reached a turning point.” Besides that, the security precautions planned for the anniversary celebrations are already looking a bit more absurd than they did on the Baltic. The small border city of Kehl (population about 35,000) will be pretty much crippled so that the privileged society of state and government leaders can have a ten minute photo-op on the pedestrian bridge linking France and Germany, while fighter jets scream past overhead.

“We will build on Heiligendamm,” is supposed to be the motto that will lure tens of thousands of protesters to Baden-Baden the first weekend in April. As it was two years ago, the protesters’ camp is to serve as base of operations for the demonstrations. This was announced at the Rosa Luxembourg Conference held by the Marxist newspaper “Junge Welt” in January. “We intend to defend ourselves as we did in Heiligendamm,” said Ulrich Maurer, leader of the Left Party faction in the German Parliament. Monty Schädel, head of the German Peace Society – United War Resisters organization, who organized the protests in Heiligendamm, admits to encountering difficulties in organizing the current protest, saying only that their efforts are continuing. But there are internal criticisms. One alternative website reports “The claim that organizing efforts have been running smoothly and could result in attracting over 50,000 demonstrators leads us to suspect they are either totally detached from reality or simply don’t know what they’re talking about.”

In the final analysis, their Easter parade lacks one essential bogeyman: George W. Bush. Even in ultra-leftist camps, Germans are more inclined to see Barack Obama as a figure they can trust as opposed to one they should shun. Even the socialist weekly newspaper “Red Flag” asks, “Has U.S. imperialism changed its character?” Rainer Braun, one of the scheduled speakers at the protest confirms, “We’re currently arguing amongst ourselves as to what we should think of Obama and it’s no secret that there are many different opinions.” And that’s exactly where the problem lies: to date, there’s no unifying decisiveness as to how to protest the leadership role of the Obama administration in NATO. Differing opinions don’t lend themselves easily to catchy slogans and maybe not to mobilizing protest demonstrations either. Even protestor Braun sees “a huge chance we might finally enter into disarmament talks with Obama.”